Managing Terminological Interference in Goal Models with Repertory Grid

Terminological interference occurs in requirements engineering when stakeholders vary in the concepts they use to understand a problem domain, and the terms they use to describe those concepts. This paper investigates the use of Kelly's Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) to explore stakeholders' varying interpretations of the labels attached to softgoals in a goal model. We associate softgoals with stakeholders' personal constructs, and use the tasks that contribute to these goals as elements that stakeholders can rate using their constructs. By structurally exchanging grids data among stakeholders, we can compare their conceptual and terminological structures, and gain insights into relationships between problem domain concepts.